Little Tokyo in Suburban Amsterdam an Analysis on Residential Clustering of Japanese Migrants in Amstelveen
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Little Tokyo in suburban Amsterdam An analysis on residential clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen Vincent Buurma 10752951 1/15/2018 Little Tokyo in Suburban Amsterdam An analysis on residential clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen Vincent Buurma 10752951 Bachelor thesis Course code: 734301500Y Bachelor Human Geography and Urban Planning (Sociale Geografie en Planologie) College Social Sciences University of Amsterdam Assignment date: January 15th, 2018 Supervisor & second reader: Dr. Dennis Arnold & Dhr. M.A. Verzijl, MSc. Words: 17.500 1 Preface This thesis marks the end of my bachelor’s degree in Human Geography & Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam. The conducted research involves multiple fields of study; Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics and Urban Planning. It is therefore very representative for the bachelor. The multidisciplinary character of Human Geography & Urban Planning has always been one of the things I enjoyed most of this major. Because multiple interesting fields of study are combined within one. My interest for Japan started in my exchange semester in Asia, when I also visited Japan. Japan is in my opinion one of the most fascinating and mysterious countries in the world. I find it therefore very interesting that so many Japanese people live in the town I grew up in, Amstelveen. In my personal opinion are Amstelveen and Tokyo or Osaka two worlds apart. Perhaps Japanese people view this differently. Or perhaps there are other reasons why they live in Amstelveen. This will all be discussed in this thesis. I want to thank my supervisor Dennis Arnold for his guidance during the past five months. He always had a positive attitude towards the project, which has kept me motivated to continue. I would also like to thank all the interview respondents for their time and effort, since I would not have been able to complete my research without them. I hope you will enjoy reading the thesis, Vincent Buurma Amsterdam, January 14, 2018 2 Abstract The settlement of Japanese companies in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in the last 30 years has been accompanied by a large settlement of Japanese migrants. Around 2000 migrants live in Amstelveen, another 1500 Japanese expatriates live next to Amstelveen, in Buitenveldert. While there are other European cities with large amounts of Japanese expatriates, the Amstelveen case is quite unique. Since apart from Dortmund, Japanese people do not cluster together in other European cities. Therefore, it is interesting to look into the factors that have driven this ethnic clustering. The research is subdivided into three main sections. First, the spatial attributes of Amstelveen have been analysed. Thereafter, the residential preferences of Japanese migrants have been investigated. At last, residential constraints have been investigated because they can interfere with residential preferences of migrants. To answer the main question, there has been made use of interviews with experts and stakeholders, combined with the analysis of secondary data such as documents and statistics. Historically, Amstelveen mostly appealed to traditional household families. They often chose for Amstelveen because of the proximity to Japanese companies, because of the presence of different services and because of the safe and modern characteristics of Amstelveen. Moreover several institutions such as national governments, the municipality, Japanese companies and real estate agencies have largely contributed to the clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen. There seems to be a shift going on within the type of households who migrate to Amstelveen, they are often younger, single and have different lifestyles and preferences than traditional households. This could oppose challenges to the existence of the Japanese community, since the presence of a Japanese community is not solely a prerequisite that all Japanese migrants want to move to Amstelveen. It is therefore advised to conduct more research on the preferences of Japanese people who chose not to reside in Amstelveen. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 5 2 Theoretical framework .................................................................................................. 8 2.1 Ethnic enclaves ....................................................................................................... 8 2.2 Migration .............................................................................................................. 11 2.3 Residential choice ................................................................................................. 12 3 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 20 3.1 Research questions ............................................................................................... 20 3.2 Research description ............................................................................................. 21 3.3 Research analysis .................................................................................................. 22 3.4 Conceptual model ................................................................................................. 30 4. Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 31 4.1 Spatial attributes ................................................................................................... 31 4.2 Residential preferences ......................................................................................... 36 4.3 Sociocultural preferences ..................................................................................... 46 4.4 Residential constraints .......................................................................................... 52 5. Conclusion & discussion ............................................................................................ 58 5.1 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 58 5.2 Recommendation and discussion ......................................................................... 60 6. References: ................................................................................................................. 62 4 1. Introduction Richard, the local fish stall owner in the Dutch village of Amstelveen, speaks Japanese most of the time. He also has a different assortment than most Dutch fish stalls, especially for his East-Asian clientele. Right next to the fish stall, people can buy Japanese anime magazines and right across the stall there is a barber shop, specialising in the latest Japanese fashion. The description of this shopping mall is very representative for one in Amstelveen, an upper-class residential Amsterdam suburb. At the moment, around 2000 Japanese migrants live in Amstelveen (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). Moreover, another 1500 Japanese people live next to Amstelveen, in the Amsterdam neighbourhood of Buitenveldert, this number has been stable over the last 20 years (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). Many of these Japanese migrants work for a Japanese multinational based in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA). There are over 350 Japanese companies based in the AMA. Big companies such as Yakult, Yamaha and Nikon all have had their European headquarters located in the region since the 1980’s (Amsterdam inBusiness, 2016). Accompanied with the large amount of Japanese people who live in Amstelveen, there are also a lot of different ethnically specific facilities located in the area. Such as a Japanese kinder garden, several Japanese shops and restaurants and a Japanese health and dental clinic. For this reason, Amstelveen is often considered as a Japanese ethnic enclave and nicknamed as Little Tokyo or Japan-on-Amstel (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). There are other areas with many Japanese migrants in Europe such as in London, Paris and Dortmund. The community in Dortmund shows many similarities with the community in Amstelveen; named as Japan-on-Rhein, there are Japanese restaurants, Japanese schools and other Japanese facilities located in the city. However, the community in Dortmund is located in a very small area, throughout six streets within one neighbourhood (Conte Helm, 2014). In Amstelveen, there are multiple smaller clusters of Japanese shops and Japanese people, located in many neighbourhoods (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). In other European cities such as Paris and London, the population distribution of Japanese migrants is far more dispersed. There is not a single location cluster for the 15.000 Parisian Japanese migrants, nor the 16.000 that reside in 5 London. There are multiple Japanese stores and schools located within the city, but they are all located at different locations. Moreover, Japanese people tend to live at different locations within the city as well. Conspicuously, other East Asian communities in Paris and London such as the Chinese do have noticeable geographical locations within the city regions (Conte Helm, 2014). For this reason, it is interesting to look into the question why the Japanese community is clustered in its current form in Amstelveen and why it differentiates from other European cities. The following research question will therefore be discussed: - What factors determine the residential ethnic